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“A computer hacker in England has done the world a service by making available a huge quantity of evidence for the way in which ‘human-induced global warming’ claims have been advanced over the years,” David Warren writes in the Ottawa Citizen, a Canadian newspaper.

“By releasing into the Internet about a thousand internal e-mails from the servers of the Climate Research Unit in the University of East Anglia - in some respects the international clearing house for climate change ‘science’ - he has (or they have) put observers in a position to see that claims of conspiracy and fraud were not unreasonable,” Mr. Warren said.

“More generally, we have been given the materials with which to obtain an insight into how all modern science works when vast amounts of public funding is at stake and when the vested interests associated with various ‘progressive’ causes require a particular scientific result.

“There is little doubt that the e-mails were real. Even so warmist a true-believer as George Monbiot led his column in the Guardian [Tuesday] with: ‘It’s no use pretending this isn’t a major blow. The e-mails extracted … could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them.’ …

“It is amusing to see mainstream media sources such as the New York Times, which thinks nothing of publishing purloined government documents that will endanger the lives of U.S. soldiers in the field and compromise vital intelligence operations, suddenly become all jowly and uptight about publishing the e-mails in question because they were ‘illegally obtained.’

“Other media - which have played a leading part for years in giving credibility to ‘global warming’ claims - are now maintaining the silence of Iago on the revelations. We will see how long this can be sustained.”

TRADING PLACES

“Last year at this time, Barack Obama was fresh off his historic election, riding a honeymoon high that would see him hit 70 percent approval. Voters gave his party control of Washington, and media acolytes were force-feeding the nation syrupy comparisons to FDR and Lincoln,” New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin writes.

“Sarah Palin, on the other hand, was sent skulking back to Alaska, beaten as well as defeated. John McCain wouldn’t let her speak on election night, a final insult in a race where she was ridiculed as a little nutty by the mainstream press and a little slutty by late-night jackals.

“What a difference a year makes. And the winds of change are still gaining speed,” Mr. Goodwin said.

“Obama’s fall from grace has been dramatic as he pushes unpopular policies from a health care overhaul to 9/11 terror trials in New York. His approval is below 50 percent, and the man who rode the wave of public anger is now the focus of it. Even deep-blue states like New Jersey are falling out of love.

“He has redivided the nation he promised to unite, and those who strongly oppose him outnumber those firmly in his corner. Independents and moderate Democrats are jumping ship, having concluded he was not honest about promises to govern from the center.

“Even more surprising, Palin is the darling of discontent. Her book, ‘Going Rogue,’ is a publishing sensation, selling 600,000 copies in two days. Thousands of people camp out overnight to buy the book and get her autograph.

“She’s becoming the phenomenon Obama was a year ago.”

TIME TO PANIC

“Preparing to write about [Tuesday’s] downward revision in third-quarter [gross domestic product], we were tempted to say the Obama administration has hit a speed-bump on its promised exit out of the recession. But it is the American economy that has hit a speed bump, and on the evidence of the policy mix emerging now from Democratic Washington, the road ahead for the economy is bump, bump, bump, bump, bump. Other than a few lucky banks, few seem be enjoying the ride,” the Wall Street Journal said in an editorial.

“What last month had appeared to be third-quarter growth of 3.5 percent in gross domestic product turns out to have been a more modest 2.8 percent. Consumer spending was pared back to 2.9 percent from 3.4 percent. The cash-for-clunkers subsidy produced fewer new-vehicle purchases than first estimated. In short, we aren’t getting much bang for our $787 billion stimulus bucks. But you already knew that,” the newspaper said.

“The frustrated Congressional Democrats who designed and enacted the stimulus seem more surprised, and they are now circling the wagons and starting to look for someone else to blame.

“The Democrat catching most of the bullets is Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Democratic Congressman Peter DeFazio of Oregon last week called on Mr. Geithner to resign. No surprise there. More noteworthy was that not a peep of support emerged for Mr. Geithner from the Obama White House. We’ve had our differences with the Treasury secretary, but how throwing Mr. Geithner off the wagon train would turn around the unemployment rate is, to put it mildly, far from clear.

“The panicked Democrats’ biggest problem is that Congress and the president have erected the biggest overhang of economic policy uncertainty that anyone can remember.”

STIMULUS REALITY

“The Obama administration claims that its $787 billion economic stimulus program has ‘created or saved’ 640,329 jobs across the country, with more to come. That breathtaking figure includes 24,448 jobs in Illinois,” the Chicago Tribune said in an editorial.

“Really? Those employment claims are looking like a snow job,” the newspaper said.

“As the Tribune’s Bob Secter and Erika Slife recently reported, the figures for Illinois don’t come close to adding up.

“State and federal officials claimed that the stimulus money had saved 473 education jobs in North Chicago. But the school district there employs only 290 people. Officials claimed 166 jobs were saved in Wilmette schools. The real number: 0. The 382 jobs supposedly saved in Dolton-Riverdale? That’s 142 more people than the school district employs. And on and on.

“Across the country, journalists and government watchdogs are finding the same yawning gap between stimulus claim and stimulus reality.”

• Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes .com.